Progress
by belikebumblebee
Summary: She doesn't want to do it because it feels like asking for attention - but then again: what's wrong with asking?
1. Chapter 1

The alcohol soaks through her tongue so fast, she barely has to swallow the liquid.

It doesn't work though, what she's trying to do. Her thoughts are still her thoughts and she still _cares_, enough to be disgusted by herself.

Kate hates when she gets this way, so lost in the maze of her mind and so twisted around that she doesn't know what's what and which way is out.

_Drinking, just like your father _she thinks and then _but I love him, he's not a bad father, he moaned, _and then _justifying it won't make it go away, face how fucked up your life is, _and then _I can't let know this _and then _my life will be this way _and then _why am I alive, I'm not supposed to be alive, _leading to _fuck, how do I stop, how do I stop, stop._

There is no safe land for her; no matter in which direction she will turn her wooly thoughts, she looses the grip onto reality - _keep it down, Kate, you feel this way because you're damaged, it's okay, you're in therapy, it'll go away, but what if it doesn't, what if this are my true thoughts and the bright side is a lie, a lie my brain makes up as it goes? What does it matter, the truth is what I feel, so this is the truth as well, what is truth in the first place and why do I need it so much, obviously I can't even hold on to _that _now, I'm a fucking crazy person, and maybe I'll still be like this tomorrow morning, how will I go to the precinct? - _and all she does is sit on the floor with whiskey and her gun, cornered and threatened.

_They will fucking kill you, _she thinks, _they will kill you, or they'll take him _and she doesn't even know who ,he' is - her father? Castle? - _they'll take it all, all away from you, the little you still have, _and _God, I can't fucking believe this is my life._

She prays when she gets like that. Not exactly to God, but to anything, absolutely anything, _let this be over, let me live, _and she can't help but think _I want my Mom._

She can't keep herself from thinking about the unhealthy things. The things Dr Burke told her to stay away from in a state like this.

Like how she used to lie in her mother's room, putting on her clothes and inhaling the scent of her pillow. How it didn't help at all.

Like the moment she was shot, she was actually _shot _in her freaking heart, when every viable thought slipped away with her blood and her life and _Castle said ,I love you' _and she wanted to go to sleep.

She feels carried away by a torrential river, not able to do anything but close her eyes, hold her breath and hope that the world stops spinning before she runs out of air.

_What if I'm not meant to have anything_ and _he'd never have me seeing this morbid mess that I am _and _I can't, I can't I can't_is what goes around in her head.

It's not like she's giving up. She wants to help herself. She wants to patch herself up and get up to do something about it - it's just so hard with her mind all hounded and fucked up, barely more than a frantic _what am I gonna do, what shall I do, what do I need, _but she's trying. To find something. Anything. A cure. A medicine.

And there is one stupid, ridiculous thing that helps sometimes. Kate doesn't like to do it, she feels embarrassed and she would never admit it, which is why she only makes use of it when she's too far gone to care, when she'll be able to defend herself (against only herself) the next morning with ,I had no choice'.

And right now, she doesn't think she has one.

»Okay Kate okay keep it together«, she says loudly and her voice sounds like she is surging up to get fresh air.

Her phone flashes when she slides to unlock. This is what she does to remind her of everyday, of not being tense and tormented: she goes through her text memory.

_Rick Castle, 8:34 am._

_I'll be there in a minute, with coffee and a danish._

_Or, as they say in Limerick:_

_Good morning, Detective, I will_

_be shortly in place of the kill_

_in case this chase will be rough_

_there will be fuel enough_

_to keep you from getting too still._

He does that, texting her. As in, texting her when there's really no point in doing so. She rarely replies, but she likes it. Especially the ones where he brings in something poetic, because it reminds her of how she is best friends and partners with Rick Castle, whose books she read like she was paid for it.

_Rick Castle, 11:23 pm._

_May I recite a haiku about this case of ours._

_Don't be so stubborn_

_CIA is in on this_

_believe me, Beckett._

She can feel it, the calmness that's coming on, intensified by the alcohol. Her muscles relaxing. But no, no, she musn't think about it, or this won't work.

She actually replied to the last text.

_Reply to: Rick Castle, 11: 25 pm._

_May I recite a haiku about this text of yours. _

_You are annoying_

_I'm trying to concentrate_

_will you please shut up._

_Rick Castle, 11:30 pm._

_May I recite a haiku about this this answer of yours._

_That was a nice one_

_I think I might be impressed_

_well done, Detective_

_Reply to: Rick Castle, 11:31 pm:_

_May I recite a haiku about this time of mine._

_I need to do the damn _

_paper work which you ignore_

_don't ask for trouble._

_Rick Castle, 11:32 pm:_

_May I recite a haiku about this honesty of yours._

_If you're so busy_

_why do you keep answering_

_you're enjoying this._

_Reply to: Rick Castle 11:35 pm._

_May I recite a haiku about this work of yours._

_Why do you have time_

_last time I checked you had to_

_write a damn novel._

Kate remembers how she actually thought about asking him why he wasn't in bed yet - but found herself hesitating mentioning the word ,bed'. And feeling ridiculous about it.

_Rick Castle, 11:37 pm _

_May I recite a haiku about this concern of yours._

_No sweat, Detective_

_I can text you and write a_

_book at the same time._

_Reply to Rick Castle, 11:40 pm_

_May I recite a haiku about this multitasking of yours._

_Oh, and here I thought_

_that persistent texting was _

_a teenage girl thing._

It's creeping over her now, the numbness of her limbs. Her heart contracts in steady beats, and something inside her clenches as she thinks about Castle, she says it out loud, »_Castle_«, and although she doesn't want to, she misses him. The way he makes her feel _safe_, not because she needs protection (as if he could offer some, she is the one with the gun, after all), but because he's so... _there _and _solid _and _constant _and _fuck, _if this wasn't so freaking complicated, it'd be the easiest thing in the entire world. Sometimes it is.

_If only I wasn't so completely ruined_, and there is she goes, back again to sobbing and pathetic and ashamed because she actually just wondered ,if only', and because she's embarrassed for feeling so sorry for herself.

_»_God, I want to make _progress«, _she says it out loud. _Oh yeah, because I _want _to be good, _life's_ just not _letting _me. _Kate hates the excuses she makes, because that's what this is to her, making excuses why she isn't good enough, fast enough, whole enough.

And all those messy, dismal, recurring thoughts somehow end up leading to

_so if you really want to make some progress, just freaking do it, damn it, do it and fuck it if you can't.  
_

There are tears on her face and her mouth tastes like vomit. But she's very still all of a sudden. Because _hey, this is it, isn't it, _this is what she was looking for. _Progress.  
_

She's not a helpless victim of fate and destiny. She's Det. Kate Beckett. She's fucking Nikki Heat. She's badass and kickass and smartass and 'tass. There's no way in hell she's giving up on everything she built up (or took down) these past months.

»Okay«, Kate tries to convince herself, »you _can _do this.«

Because what she found is this: There is a choice. There is always a choice. And right now, she may choose whatever she wants, whatever she sees herself able to do.

* * *

His phone vibrates loudly against his metal nightstand. Castle rubs his eyes as he slides to unlock, sleepy and expecting murder.

_Kate Beckett, 3:49 am._

_I'm not doing overly well_

_actually I'm kind of in hell_

_maybe you could just call _

_and help tear down the wall_

_by having a story to tell?_

Eleven, twelve, thirteen seconds pass as he just sits there, staring in disbelief.

Is Kate Beckett really asking for help? For help with something real? By asking for a bedtime story? Him? _Him, _his heart cries, _him, finally him. _

_Reply to: Kate Beckett, 3:51 am._

_I do have a story to share_

_and because I really do care_

_I will just put on some pants_

_and with some food on my hands_

_I will be right over there._


	2. Chapter 2

The night outside is mild and yet, his hands are cold by the time Castle arrives at her building. The plastic bag he carries cuts into his wrist, he's almost afraid his fingers could cool the coffee.

Him she has called to come and help her out.

Him she has chosen, him she has entrusted with this, him she has given a chance.

As a man who has been married twice, Castle is not unfamiliar with screwing up. This though? He really, really doesn't want to blow it.

_What would you need? _he keeps wondering, _what is she asking for?_

His heart beats hard in concern. What state will he find her in? Will this haunt him and his sleep for the next two months? He gets like that. Haunted. By her. All the time. But he can't stay away, can't help it, undoubtedly: Rick Castle is inexorably in love with her.

And that is not as romantic as one might think. At least not in the middle of the night when his face rest against the bathroom tiles because he's been sickened by dreams of her - shot, killed, kicked around. _Being in love is exhausting._

The doorman knows him, greets and grins shyly. The elevator shuts out the never resting street noise of New York, it's eerily quiet.

_What does she need? What do I have? _

His fingers search his coat pockets, as if he could cheer her up with something shiny he found or bought, like it did Alexis when she was small.

_Bling._

* * *

The time span from texting Castle to receiving his answer adds up to two minutes. To Kate, it feels like an abyss of _you're stupid you're stupid you're seriously stupid _filled with _so you're gonna just show yourself in all your drunk, disgusting, depressed glory, allow him to pity you and then what? _and, of course, _you're just one big mess and he's a man child, how is this supposed to work, and oh, if that's  
not enough, you're also chased by a professional killer. _

Between Castle's _kind of sweet but no no, no _reply and his knock on the door, twenty-six minutes pass.

It takes her eight minutes to work herself out of a panic attack _I'll text him not to come - he'll come anyways - I don't want him to come - I do want him to be here but - he can't see this - I'll call him, tell him to got to bed - what kind of a person am I, bouncing him back and forth and he said he - he's a grown man, he signs women's chests, he'll be fine, he can handle rejection, at least he won't be - he can't see this, he can't, I'll have to -_

and a minute and a half to actually get up and put the booze away.

Her hands clawed in her hair, her face wet, she stands in the middle of her apartment, unsure what to do now, how to make everything look normal. Two minutes.

She washes her hands and face with cold water, tries to make it all gurgle away in the sink, dries her eyes in the towel. Three minutes. Stares at her reflection. Her pale face, her swollen eyes without make up. Half a minute.

Sitting down in the kitchen with a bottle of water, trying to speed-sober up, Kate gets lost again. _Do I have the right to ask him for anything? Not only because of the lying, not only because I - am I really doing badly enough? I can't believe I'm wondering whether I'm doing badly enough. I'm fine. I'm fine. I need to be okay. I'm good. I'm fine. Dr Burke would look at me now, make this face. I hate when he makes this face. I hate having to go there. Why can't I just be normal, stupid, and normal, not worrying about anything but my nail varnish, why does everything have to be so screwed up, and I'm just passing it on to him, that's just terrific, maybe they should just come and find me._

Ten minutes of this. She starts pacing, _too late to send him away now, _tries to do yoga, but she's had too much alcohol, it makes her dizzy and sick to her stomach, _how will I -_

Knock knock, knock.

She opens the door with her left hand, her right is in her hair. She doesn't look him in the eye, and when she says »Hey, Castle, come in«, her voice sounds wrong, alcohol is on her breath. »Hey«, he replies and closes the door behind him, watches her saunter into the apartment, »I brought coffee and bagels.«

On the inside, his throat is closing with the desire to be closer. Not - sexually, but just... closer. »What I have also brought is something else you will probably be interested in, _but_«

he pauses dramatically. It is important to do so, because it eases the tension around them. It says: Don't worry, I'm not gonna mention anything too sensitive.

»you're gonna have to promise something first.«

At this, she turns around and gives him a look he doesn't know how to take.

She had relaxed when she'd seen him, not because it was _him _(maybe just a little bit because of that), but because he looked just like he always did.

The awkward first moments he managed to blur, but now he's asking something of her, or at least he's about to, and she's in no state for that. She isn't.

_Please, Castle, now is not the time for thorny topics, I can't deal with that right now._

»I'm listening?« _Pretending won't make him notice that he's about to cross a-_

»Whatever you may see in this«, he's waving something, a book, no, it's a-

»whatever I may tell you« - it's a photo album, as far as she can tell - »tomorrow, it will all be forgotten. You will put it in a box and close it. This is not teasing material! It's off-limits! We will go inside a bubble and this knowledge may not leave it! I'll check your pockets, if I have to.« He's making her laugh. As always. She wants to cry in relief.

This promise isn't for him. It's his promise to her.

»Message received«, she says, and sits down on the couch. »Show me that. And let me have my coffee, before it gets cold...«

He loves that she gets his subtext. It doesn't matter that she's not sober and has obviously been crying her freaking eyes out, she's still perfectly able to catch his folded little letters and decipher his codified messages, just as well as he's in the position to read her. The morse code she's using to transmit what she can't manage to just tell him.

He loves that. But tonight, he can't think of her like that.

When your own daughter reminds you to look out for yourself, it might make you realize two things: Firstly, your kid has grown adult and maybe a little more sharp-witted than is good for her (you), and secondly, you should really start looking out for yourself.

And thus, Castle does what writing twenty-six novels has taught him to do best:

He changes his perspective with everything he's got.

Tonight, he's not here as the man who fell in love with Kate Beckett and told her while she was bleeding out beneath his shaking, pleading hands. He's just her friend.

Her whirly mind has gone to rest. That doesn't mean that she's fine now. It only means that she's too tired to formulate her thoughts, feeling better just enough to stop thinking.

It means that her emotions wash over her like the ocean plays with a leaf; one second she's laughing at some embarrassing story from Castle's youth, the next she'll be crying over a picture of his mother. Not because she reminds her so much of her own Mom, but simply because she likes her so much and because she's always been so nice to her.

There is no logical explanation for anything she feels anymore, the waves just throw her up and down. But Castle doesn't say a word. He doesn't hug her, he doesn't touch her.

Respects what little of her dignity is left and doesn't take advantage.

And when she wakes up the next morning, she's not on her couch anymore, but in her bed, a bottle of water and some aspirin on her nightstand. She doesn't remember falling asleep. The clock on the phone says it's 11:30 am.

He's gone. As silently promised, she doesn't have to deal with anything. When she enters her living room, there is no evidence of his nightly presence at all.

Thankfully.

* * *

_Kate Beckett, 12:02 pm._

_»I do not deal the cards and I play a lousy hand_

_I celebrate no victories and my promises are sand_

_against all this I contrast you, when all is lost, the war is through_

_dare the winds now we can fly«_

_- Poets of the Fall_

He stands corrected. He will never truly read her.

And that he loves even more.


	3. Chapter 3

Admittedly, she dressed up for him. A little.

The shoes were her choice, something to start from; but the stockings and the tight dress in dark grey are for him, honestly. Not too modest and not too desperate.

It is his birthday, after all. And the way Castle's jaw dropped when he opened the door, even though hardly noticeable, made it completely worth the ninety four minutes she spent on getting ready.

»Hey, birthday boy«, she had said and stepped past him, leaving a careless peck on his cheek and the scent of her perfume in his face.

»Hey«, he had answered and then closed the door, a little out of time, but he found his wit back quickly. »Dressed up for me, have you? I'm honored.«

Despite his teasing words, his voice was deep and warm and sounded like something Kate wants to crawl into.

If his dress pants and sinfully silky shirt (which he didn't wear in the precinct today) are any indication, he attired as well. Though she's not sure it's for her.

Isn't it weird, she thinks. After everything that happened or didn't happen, she still can't quite believe that he should love her in this way.

And yet, it is so obvious tonight. Every word he addresses to he seems to be said with affection. He doesn't quit staring. And, maybe the most evident thing:

She's here. With his mother and daughter, she sits at his table and eats the dinner he served in this gentleman-like manner of his. Invited in his home, she drinks wine with Martha and discusses matters of high and not-so high importance with Alexis.

Tells him stories about Esposito and Ryan.

By desert, she slowly notices how comfortable she got and can't help but think_:_

_I have no idea what I'm doing. _

* * *

He watches her interact with his family. Watches his family, if he's honest.

She looks like sex on heels. Love eyeballs all over. Oh, he wants her.

»A drunk Kate Beckett in this dress? Is this my birthday present? Oh, mother, you shouldn't have.«

»Richard Castle!«

»Just kidding. You totally should have.«

»Oh, well, Castle, if this is all you want - I'll just keep your real present to myself.«

This voice, he likes it. She gets like that, sometimes. So relaxed that her voice loses that careful edge and something shimmers through her shell, something he can't quite put his finger on. In every sense of the expression.

»It is gift giving time then, I take it?«

Castle leans back as his mother emerges from the table, snatches a present from its hiding place on the closet (which of course he discovered but politely ignored) and gives it to him.

»There you go, kiddo«, she says, a little harshly but with much motherly love - his mother in a nutshell, he thinks. Castle smiles and starts unwrapping.

»Thanks, mother.«

A terribly good old talasker Whiskey is what she got him.

Alexis' gift is a laser tag armrest - _I'll still kick your butt, _the note says. The gift really is precious to him, because it's his daughter's way of saying: _Don't worry. I'll never outgrow our things._

After having unpacked Kate's present for him (an NYPD hood and a name tag with _NYPD Consultant Writer _on it), they sit together in the living room, and Castle feels so at ease with everything that he puts his arm on the backrest behind Beckett.

* * *

It's like their minds are laced like fingers while holding hands.

They're not touching at all, but Kate can feel this arm behind her, and she feels something else - she feels like she belongs. And so... she stays.

She just doesn't do what she normally does, doesn't say goodbye, doesn't leave, doesn't run away when she thinks that she relaxes too much.

_Progress, Kate, _she tells herself. _Take a step._

At some point, Alexis excuses herself to go to bed, and the adults stay behind.

Their glasses of red wine are pleasingly smooth in their hands and all three of them seem to enjoy the calm atmosphere too much to walk away from it.

The even talk about the current case, and Kate sees where Castle gets his way of thinking outside the box from.

But it gets late and later and around one thirty, Martha gives in to her fatigue as well. She bids them goodnight and retires to her room, leaving only Beckett and Castle on the couch. Suddenly sizzlingly close.

_This is it, _Kate thinks, _if you are doing this at all, now would be the time. _

Her heart beats hard and evidently, reassuringly alive against her ribcage. Ridiculous.

»You know, Castle«, now is the last chance to say something that doesn't mean anything at all. Like they always do.

»I'm gonna go home, too.«

She sees his face fall a little. Isn't it weird how she knows him well enough by now to notice that small change in his expression, almost entirely suppressed?

She gets up, supporting herself on his knee, casually. _How very generous, a touch for his wait. _

He walks her to the door, they exchange quiet expressions of how nice the evening was and before Kate can think herself out of it again, she bursts out:

»I have another present for you.«

Well. No going back now, is there.

Castle doesn't reply, maybe he doesn't dare. Too afraid to break the moment. Or her decision. Or her.

Beckett reaches in her handbag and pulls out what has been a weight the entire night - both literally and symbolically.

She rises to her toes as she rests her cheek to his jaw for a moment and kisses the air next to him.

»It's not necessarily a birthday present. However, it _is _for you. Good night, Castle.«

With that, she leaves his apartment.

* * *

Apparently, his fingers took what she gave him without him even noticing. Castle inhales. He got distracted by her scent again.

»Goodnight, Beckett«, he murmurs to the closed door.

It's heavy in his hand. What is this? A gold bar?

He neatly unfolds the wrapping, undresses her gift like he'd like to do her. _Especially tonight. _

»What on earth...«

He stops, confused, as he gets what it is, and fishes for the note that slipped out of it and fell to the ground.

_I'm assuming you don't understand_

_what to do with this thing in your hand? _

_Well, what does one do with a brick_

_just think closely about it, dear Rick_

_what did we both have planned?_

A brick. _What does one do with a brick?_

A brick... _what did we both have planned?_

Houses are buildt from bricks... well, nowadays only facades... wall...

_Just another brick in the... _

Wall! A wall is buildt from bricks! Wall! Her wall! _The _wall! Coming down!

_However, it _is _for you. _

The clinker falls on the couch and Castle sprints to the door, _maybe she's still in the building, _he races down the stairs because the elevator is just so slow,

»Kate!«

* * *

So, she did it.

Having had the heart to do it leaves a taste of _and now what _ on her tongue.

She gets on the elevator and counts the minutes on her way down, to see how long it takes him.

But it doesn't change the fact that the real step for tonight awaits her now. It's more of a leap, really.

Like she planned it: No running. The wall is down, she gave the symbolic remains to him, she can't run now.

Somewhere in the building, a door opens. Three minutes and a half.

She stands her ground. _Won't back down, won't shy away. _

_»_Kate!_«_

She turns around, hair flying, a smile on her lips, there he is.

_Well, _some part of her really quietly says, _now here's your chance to make some progress. _


End file.
